Yahoo!
 | |
| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Traded as | NASDAQ: YHOO NASDAQ-100 Component S&P 500 Component |
| Industry | Internet |
| Founded | Santa Clara, California, U.S. (March 1, 1995) |
| Founder(s) | Jerry Yang, David Filo |
| Headquarters | Sunnyvale, California, U.S. |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Fred Amoroso (Chairman) Marissa Mayer (CEO) |
| Products | See Yahoo! products |
| Revenue |  US$ 4.98 billion (2011)[1] |
| Operating income |  US$ 800 million (2011)[1] |
| Net income | US$ 1.04 billion (2011)[1] |
| Total assets | US$ 14.78 billion (2011)[1] |
| Total equity | US$ 12.53 billion (2011)[1] |
| Employees | 12,000 (May 2012)[2] |
| Subsidiaries | Yahoo! subsidiaries |
| Website | Yahoo.com |
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is best known for itsweb portal, search engine (Yahoo! Search), Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News,Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping, video sharing, fantasy sports and social media website and services. It is one of the largest websites in the United States.[3] According to news sources, roughly 700 million people visit Yahoo! websites every month.[4][5] Yahoo! itself claims it attracts "more than half a billion consumers every month in more than 30 languages."[6]
Yahoo! Inc. was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994 and was incorporated on March 1, 1995. On July 16, 2012, former Google executive, Marissa Mayer, was named as Yahoo! CEO and President, effective July 17.[7] Yahoo has averaged one CEO a year for the last five years.
[edit]Main article: History of Yahoo!History and growth
See also: Timeline of Yahoo!
The word "yahoo" is an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle"[12] The term "hierarchical" described how the Yahoo! database was arranged in directory layers. The term "oracle" was intended to mean "source of truth and wisdom," and the term "officious," rather than being related to the word's normal meaning, described the many office workers who would use the Yahoo! database while surfing from work.[13] However, Filo and Yang insist they mainly selected the name because they liked the slang definition of a "yahoo" (used by college students in David Filo's native Louisiana in the late 1980s and early 1990s to refer to an unsophisticated, rural Southerner): "rude, unsophisticated, uncouth." Filo's college girlfriend often referred to Filo as a "yahoo." This meaning derives from the name of a race of fictional beings from Gulliver's Travels.
Yahoo! grew rapidly throughout the 1990s. Like many search engines and web directories, Yahoo! diversified into a web portal. It also made many high-profile acquisitions. Its stock price skyrocketed during the dot-com bubble, Yahoo! stocks closing at an all-time high of $118.75 a share on January 3, 2000. However, after the dot-com bubble burst, it settled at a post-bubble low of $4.05 on September 26, 2001.
In 2000, Yahoo! began using Google for search results. Over the next four years, it developed its own search technologies, which it began using in 2004. Yahoo! also revamped its mail service to compete with Google's Gmail in 2007. The company struggled through 2008, with several large layoffs.
In February 2008, Microsoft Corporation made an unsolicited bid to acquire Yahoo! for USD $44.6 billion. Yahoo! formally rejected the bid, claiming that it "substantially undervalues" Yahoo! and was not in the interest of its shareholders. Three years later, Yahoo! had a stock market capitalization of USD $22.24 billion.[14] Carol Bartz replaced cofounder Jerry Yang in January 2009.[15] In September 2011, she was removed from her position at Yahoo! by the company's chairman Roy Bostock, and CFO Tim Morse was named as Interim CEO of the company.
In early 2012, after the appointment of Scott Thompson as the new CEO, many rumors spread about large layoffs looming. Several key executives, such as Chief Product Officer Blake Irving left Yahoo!.[16] On April 4, 2012, Yahoo announced a cut of 2,000 jobs or about 14 percent of 14,100 workers employed by Yahoo!. The cut is expected to save around $375 million annually after the layoffs are completed at end of 2012.[17] In an email memo sent to employees in April 2012, Scott Thompson re-iterated his view that customers should come first at Yahoo!. He also completely re-organized the company.[18]
On May 13, 2012, Yahoo! issued a press release stating that Thompson was no longer with the company, and would immediately be replaced on an interim basis by Ross Levinsohn, recently appointed head of Yahoo's new Media group.[18][19][20] Thompson's total compensation for his 130-day tenure with Yahoo! will be at least $7.3 million.[21]
In June 2012, Yahoo! hired former Google director, Michael Barrett as its Chief Revenue Officer.[22]
[edit]Products and services
Main article: List of Yahoo!-owned sites and services
Yahoo! operates the web portal which provides content including the latest news, entertainment, and sports information. The portal also gives users access to other Yahoo! services like Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Maps, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Groups and Yahoo! Messenger.
[edit]Storing personal information and tracking usage
On March 29, 2012, Yahoo! announced that it will introduce a "Do Not Track" feature this summer, allowing users to opt out of web-visit tracking and customized ads.[25]Working with comScore, The New York Times found that Yahoo! is able to collect far more data about webusers than its competitors from its websites and advertising network. By one measure, on average Yahoo! had the potential in December 2007 to build a profile of 2,500 records per month about each of its visitors.[23] Yahoo! retains search requests for a period of 13 months. However, in response to European Regulators, Yahoo scrambles the IP address of users after three months by deleting its last eight bits.[24]
According to a 2008 article in Computerworld, Yahoo has a 2-petabyte, specially built data warehouse, which it uses to analyze the behavior of its half-billion Web visitors per month, processing 24 billion events a day.[26] In contrast the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) database of all US taxpayers weighs in at only 150 TB.[26]
[edit]Communication
Yahoo! was also involved in the provision of social networking services and user-generated content, with products such as My Web,Yahoo! Personals, Yahoo! 360°, Delicious, Flickr, and Yahoo! Buzz serving as examples. In December 2010, reports emerged that Yahoo! would be shutting down Yahoo! Buzz, MyBlogLog, and numerous other products.[28]Yahoo! provides Internet communication services such as Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Mail. In March 2007, Yahoo! announced that, as of May 2007, its e-mail service would offer unlimited storage.[27]
The Yahoo! Photos service was closed on September 20, 2007, in favor of Flickr. On October 16, 2007, Yahoo! announced that it would discontinue support provision for Yahoo! 360°, including the cessation of bug repairs; the company explained that in 2008 it would instead establish a "universal profile" similar to the Yahoo! Mash experimental system.[29]
[edit]Content
Yahoo! partners with numerous content providers in products such as Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Music, Yahoo! Movies,Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Answers and Yahoo! Games to provide media content and news. Yahoo! also provides a personalization service, My Yahoo!, which enables users to combine their favorite Yahoo! features, content feeds and information onto a single page.
On March 31, 2008, Yahoo! launched Shine, a site tailored for women seeking online information and advice between the ages of 25 and 54.[30]
[edit]Co-branded Internet services
Yahoo! has developed partnerships with different broadband providers such as AT&T (via BellSouth & SBC), Verizon Communications,Rogers Communications and British Telecom, offering a range of free and premium Yahoo! content and services to subscribers.[specify][vague][citation needed]
[edit]Mobile Services
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Yahoo! Mobile offers services for email, instant messaging, and mobile blogging, as well as information services, searches and alerts. Services for the camera phone include entertainment, ring tones, and Yahoo! Photos.
Yahoo! also introduced its Internet search system, called oneSearch, developed for mobile phones on March 20, 2007. The company's officials stated that in distinction from ordinary Web searches, Yahoo!'s new service presents a list of actual information, which may include news headlines, images from Yahoo!'s Flickr photos site, business listings, local weather, and links to other sites. Instead of showing only, for example, popular movies or some critical reviews, oneSearch lists local theaters that at the moment are playing a certain movie, along with user ratings and news headlines regarding the movie. A zip code or city name is required for Yahoo! oneSearch to start delivering local search results.
The results of a Web search are listed on a single page and are prioritized into categories. The list of results is based on calculations that Yahoo! computers make on certain information the user is seeking.[31]
On October 8, 2010, Yahoo! announced plans to brings video chat to iPhones and Android-based phones via its popular Yahoo Messenger instant messaging service.[33]
[edit]Commerce
Yahoo! offers commerce services such as Yahoo! Shopping, Yahoo! Autos, Yahoo! Real Estate and Yahoo! Travel, which enables users to gather relevant information and make commercial transactions and purchases online. Yahoo! Auctions were discontinued in 2007 except for Asia.[34]
[edit]Small business
Yahoo! provides services such as Yahoo! Domains, Yahoo! Web Hosting, Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, Yahoo! Business Email and Yahoo! Store to small business owners and professionals allowing them to build their own online stores using Yahoo!'s tools.[citation needed]
On 24 May 2012, Yahoo launched Axis search browser. The browser is currently available for Apple mobile devices and on desktops.[35]
[edit]Advertising
Yahoo! Search Marketing provides services such as Sponsored Search, Local Advertising, and Product/Travel/Directory Submit that let different businesses advertise their products and services on the Yahoo! network.
Following the closure of a "beta" version on April 30, 2010, the Yahoo! Publisher Network was relaunched and is an advertising tool that allows online publishers to monetize their websites through the use of site-relevant advertisements.[36]
Yahoo! launched its new Internet advertisement sales system on February 5, 2007, called Panama. It allows advertisers to bid for search terms based on their popularity to display their ads on search results pages. The system takes bids, ad quality, clickthrough rates and other factors into consideration in determining how ads are ranked on search results pages. Through Panama, Yahoo! aims to provide more relevant search results to users, a better overall experience, as well as increase monetization—to earn more from the ads it shows.[37]
On April 7, 2008, Yahoo! announced APT from Yahoo!, which was originally called AMP! from Yahoo!,[38] an online advertising management platform.[39] The platform seeks to simplify advertising sales by unifying buyer and seller markets. The service was launched in September 2008.[40]
In September 2011, Yahoo formed an ad selling strategic partnership with 2 of its top competitors, AOL and Microsoft.[41]
[edit]Yahoo! Next
Yahoo! Next is an incubation ground for future Yahoo! technologies currently in their beta-testing phase. It contains forums for Yahoo! users to give feedback to assist in the development of these future Yahoo! technologies. It was created by Jerry Page and David Shin.[42]
[edit]Yahoo! BOSS
Yahoo! Search BOSS is a service that allows developers to build search applications based on Yahoo!'s search technology.[43] Early Partners in the program include Hakia, Me.dium, Delver, Daylife and Yebol.[44]
On October 8, 2010, The Yahoo Search Blog announced BOSS is switching, as expected, to a paid model. They will charge on a cost-per-query model where the price will vary from $0.40 to $0.75 CPM (cost per 1000 BOSS queries). The price, as Yahoo explained, will depend on if you are querying web, image, news or other information. Yahoo said they plan on offering BOSS v1, the free version, for free 60 days after BOSS v2, the paid version, is launched – which is expected in early 2011.[45]
[edit]Yahoo! Meme
Yahoo! Meme is a beta social service, similar to the popular social networking sites Twitter and Jaiku.
[edit]Yahoo! Koprol
Yahoo! Koprol is an Indonesian geo-tagging website that allows users to share information about locations without the use of a GPS device. Koprol was acquired by Yahoo! a year following its inception and, in 2011, 1.5 million people were utilizing the website, with users also based in Singapore, the Philippines, and Vietnam. However, eighty percent of users were Indonesian.[46]
On June 29, 2012, Yahoo! officially announced that the Koprol website would be discontinued on August 28, 2012, as it has been considered a product that does "not meaningfully drive revenue or engagement".[47]
[edit]Y!Connect
Y!Connect is a feature that enables individuals to leave comments in online publication boards by using their Yahoo ID, instead of having to register with each individual publication. The Wall Street Journal reported that Yahoo plans to mimic this strategy used by rival Facebook Inc. to help drive traffic to its site.[48]
[edit]Yahoo! Accessibility
Yahoo! has invested resources to increase and improve access to the internet for the disabled community through the Yahoo! Accessibility Lab.[49]
[edit]Closed down services
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Geocities was a popular web hosting service founded in 1995 and was one of the first services to offer web pages to the public. At one point it was the third-most-browsed site on the World Wide Web[50] Yahoo! purchased GeoCities in 1999 and ten years later, the web host was closed, deleting some seven million web pages.[51] A great deal of information was lost but many of those sites and pages have been mirrored at the Internet Archive,[52] OOcities.com, and other such databases.[53]
Yahoo! Go, a Java-based phone application with access to most of Yahoo! services, was closed down on January 12, 2010.[54]
Yahoo! 360° was a blogging/social networking beta service launched in March 2005 by Yahoo! and closed on July 13, 2009.[55] Yahoo! Mash beta was another social service closed after one year of operation prior to leaving beta status.[56]
Yahoo! Photos was shut down on September 20, 2007, in favor of integration with Flickr. Yahoo! Tech was a website that provided product information and setup advice to users. Yahoo! launched the website in May 2006. On March 11, 2010, Yahoo! closed down the service and redirected users to Yahoo!'s technology news section.[57] Other discontinued services include Farechase, My Web, Audio Search, Pets, Live, Kickstart, Briefcase, and Yahoo! for Teachers.[58]
Hotjobs was acquired by and merged with Monster.com.
[edit]Twitter slide leak on upcoming changes to Yahoo!
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On December 15, 2010, one day after Yahoo! announced layoffs of 4% of its workers across their portfolio, MyBlogLog founder Eric Marcoullier posted a slide from a Yahoo employee on Twitter. The slide was visible during an employee-only strategy webcast indicating changes in Yahoo's offerings.[59]
The following services were in a column under "Sunset": Yahoo Picks, AltaVista, MyM, AlltheWeb, Yahoo Bookmarks, Yahoo! Buzz,del.icio.us, and MyBlogLog. Under "Merge" was: Upcoming, FoxyTunes, Yahoo! Events, Yahoo! People Search, Sideline, and FireEagle.
11 other properties were listed that Yahoo was interested in developing into feature sites within the portal to take the place of the "Sunset" and "Merge" vacancies, including the prior feature services (before the New Yahoo! Mail was launched), were Yahoo Address Book, Calendar, and Notepad.[60] Yahoo's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President Blake Irving unofficially responded to the tweet implying that whoever sent him that particular slide is fired.[citation needed]
The blog on del.icio.us released a post by Chris Yeh after the leak, detailing that "Sunset" in their case doesn't necessarily mean they are closing down, and that other possibilities – including Delicious leaving Yahoo (through sale or spinoff) – are still on the table and that Delicious will not be closing down at this time; "We can only imagine how upsetting the news coverage over the past 24 hours has been to many of you. Speaking for our team, we were very disappointed by the way that this appeared in the press."[61] On April 27, 2011, an announcement said that Delicious has been sold to Avos by Yahoo!.[62]
Yahoo! Buzz was closed down on April 21, 2011 with no official announcement by Yahoo!.[63]
Yahoo! closed down MyBlogLog on May 24, 2011.[64]
[edit]Revenue model
Other forms of advertising that bring in revenue for Yahoo! include display[citation needed] and contextual advertising, with the latter providing the basis for the "Keystone" initiative (developed by Yahoo! to develop an "ad selection technology for direct and online marketers to place non-guaranteed advertisements on publisher sites.").[66]About 88% of total revenues for the fiscal year 2009 came from marketing services.[citation needed] The largest segment of it comes from search advertising, where advertisers bid for search terms to display their ads on the search results, on average Yahoo! makes 2.5 cents to 3 cents from each search. In a 2006 press release regarding the launch of the search advertising system, "Panama", Yahoo! stated that the "platform will enable marketers to more quickly launch search advertising campaigns across Yahoo and its distribution network, and help achieve better overall return on their search advertising investment."[65]
[edit]Criticism
In 2000, Yahoo! was taken to court in France by parties seeking to prevent French citizens from purchasing memorabilia relating to theNazi Party.[67] In March 2004, Yahoo! launched a paid inclusion program whereby commercial websites are guaranteed listings on the Yahoo! search engine,[68] but Yahoo! discontinued the paid inclusion / search submit program at the end of 2009.[69] Yahoo! has also been criticized for providing ads via the Yahoo! ad network to companies who display them through spyware and adware.[70][71]
Yahoo!, as well as other search engines, has cooperated with the Chinese government in censoring search results. In April 2005, dissident Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "providing state secrets to foreign entities"[72] as a result of being identified by IP address by Yahoo![73] The extent of Yahoo's foreknowledge of Shi's fate is disputed by Yahoo! General Counsel and human rights organizations.[74] Human rights groups also accuse Yahoo! of aiding authorities in the arrest of dissidents Li Zhi and Jiang Lijun.
In September 2003, dissident Wang Xiaoning was convicted of charges of "incitement to subvert state power" and was sentenced to ten years in prison. Yahoo Hong Kong was responsible for connecting Wang's group to a specific Yahoo e-mail address.[75] Both Xiaoning's wife and the World Organization for Human Rights[76] sued Yahoo! under human rights laws on behalf of Wang and Shi.[77]
As a result of media scrutiny relating to Internet child predators and a lack of significant ad revenues, Yahoo!'s "user created" chatrooms were closed down in June 2005.[78] On May 25, 2006, Yahoo!'s image search was criticized for bringing up sexually explicit images even when SafeSearch was on.[79] Yahoo! is a 40% owner of Alibaba Group, which was previously a subject of controversy for allowing the sale of shark-derived products. Nevertheless, the company banned the sale of shark fin products on all its e-commerce platforms in January 1, 2009. On November 30, 2009, Yahoo! was criticized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for sending a DMCAnotice to whistle-blower website "Cryptome" for publicly posting details, prices, and procedures[80] on obtaining private information pertaining to Yahoo!'s subscribers.[81]
After some concerns over censorship of private emails regarding a website affiliated with Occupy Wall Street protests were raised,[82][83] Yahoo! responded with an apology and explained it as an accident.[84]
[edit]Yahoo! subject of cyber attacks originating in China
Adobe and Yahoo! appear to have been among the targets of cyber attacks originating in China now known as Operation Aurora.[85]
[edit]Financial data
| Year | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sales | 1,625 | 3,574 | 5,258 | 6,426 | 6,969 | 7,208 | 6,460 | 6,324 | 4,984 |
| EBITDA | 453 | 1,000 | 1,505 | 1,066 | |||||
| Net Results | 238 | 840 | 1,896 | 751 | 660 | 424 | 597 | 1,231 | |
| Staff | 5,500 | 7,600 | 9,800 | 11,400 | 13,900 | 13,200 | 14,100 |
[edit]Advertising Revenue
As of January 2010, Yahoo! held the world's largest market share in online display advertising. JP Morgan put the company’s US market share for display ads at 17%, well ahead of No. 2 Microsoft at 11% and AOL at 7%.[87]
[edit]Executives
[edit]Board of Directors (current)
- Alfred Amoroso (2012) – Chairman, Yahoo! Inc.
- John D Hayes (2012) – Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, American Express Company and former President ofLowe & Partners
- Sue James Retired Partner, Ernst & Young LLP
- David Kenny (2011)
- Peter Liguori (2012) Former Chief Operating Officer, Discovery Communications, Inc. and former Chairman and President of Entertainment, Fox Broadcasting Company
- Daniel S. Loeb (2012)
- Marissa Mayer (2012) - CEO Yahoo! Inc.
- Thomas J McInerney (2012) – Former Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, IAC/InterActiveCorp
- Brad D. Smith President and Chief Executive Officer, Intuit Inc.
- Maynard Webb, Jr. (2012) – Founder, Webb Investment Network and chairman and former CEO of LiveOps
- Harry J. Wilson (2012)
- Michael Wolf (2012)
[edit]Board of Directors (past)
- Roy Bostock past Chairman, Yahoo! Inc.
- Patti Hart President and Chief Executive Officer, International Game Technology
- Vyomesh Joshi Executive Vice President, Imaging and Printing Group, Hewlett-Packard Company
- Arthur Kern Private Investor
- Scott Thompson Yahoo! CEO
- Gary L. Wilson (2001) Private Investor General Partner, Manhattan Pacific Partners, was the chairman of the board of Northwest Airlines, chief financial officer of Walt Disney Company, and chief financial officer of Marriott Corporation.[92]
[edit]Chief Executive Officers
- Marissa Mayer (2012–present)
- Ross Levinsohn Interim (2012)
- Scott Thompson (2012)
- Tim Morse Interim (2011–2012)
- Carol Bartz (2009–2011)
- Jerry Yang (2007–2009)
- Terry Semel (2001–2007)
- Timothy Koogle (1995–2001)
[edit]Yahoo! International
Yahoo! is known across the world with its multi-lingual interface. The site is available in over 20 languages, including English. The official directory for all of the Yahoo! International sites is world.yahoo.com.
Each of the international sites are wholly owned by Yahoo!, with the exception of Yahoo! Japan, in which it holds a 34.75% minoritySoftBank holds 35.45%,[94] Yahoo!Xtra in New Zealand which Yahoo!7 have 51% of and 49% belongs to Telecom New Zealand and Yahoo!7 in Australia which is a 50–50 agreement between Yahoo! and the Seven Network. Historically, Yahoo! entered into joint venture agreements with SoftBank for the major European sites (UK, France, Germany) and well as Korea and Japan. In November 2005, Yahoo! purchased the minority interests that SoftBank owned in Europe and Korea.
Yahoo! used to hold a 40% stake in Alibaba, which manages a web portal in China using the Yahoo! brand name. Yahoo! in the USA does not have direct control over the operations of Alibaba, which operates as a completely independent company. On May 21, 2012, following years of negotiations, Alibaba announced that it would buy back half the 40% stake owned by Yahoo. The deal would raise about $7.1bn (£4.5bn) for Yahoo, which has been losing ground to rival Google and Facebook in online advertising.
In 2008, Darren Petterson, business development director for Yahoo! Europe confirmed that Yahoo! was going to launch a Romanianversion of their website by the end of the year,[95][96] however, due to the financial crisis at that time, those plans were frozen.[97] In February 2010, new reports appeared in the Romanian media claiming that the portal will finally launch by June the same year, as some services like Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Mobile are already translated into Romanian.[98][99] On March 8, 2011 Yahoo! launched its Romania local service.
Yahoo! officially entered the MENA region when it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Maktoob, a pan-regional, Arabic-language hosting and social services online portal, on August 25, 2009.[100] Since the service is pan-regional, Yahoo! officially became Yahoo! Maktoob in the region.
Yahoo!'s EMEA operations are led by Senior Vice President & Managing Director of Yahoo! EMEA, Rich Riley.
[edit]Logos and themes
The first logo was used when the company was founded in 1995. It was red and had three icons on each side.[101]
The logo used on the main page www.yahoo.com used to be red with a black outline and shadow, but in May 2009, along with a new theme redesign, the logo was changed to purple with no outline or shadow.
Sometimes, the logo is abbreviated with "Y!".[102]
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